Jail Deadlines and Budget Woes

The News-Gazette laid out the issues facing the downtown and satellite jails, proposals for expansion, budget problems and the work of Build Programs Not Jails in support of reforms and programs that would rely on less jailing. Full text here. Excerpt:

CU-CitizenAccess: DOJ's deadline looms over Champaign County Jail

URBANA — With a U.S. Department of Justice-imposed deadline approaching, Champaign County officials are under increasing pressure to either renovate or close the 37-year-old jail in downtown Urbana.

The county has already stopped using much of the downtown jail — it has a daily population hovering around 45 people, even though its capacity is 113. It has instead relied more on the satellite jail in east Urbana, which has a capacity of 182.

An agreement between the county and the DOJ states that the county must renovate the downtown jail to adhere to Americans with Disabilities Act standards by March. These renovations are expected to cost about $175,000.

In November, the DOJ said it would consider granting the county an extension to come into compliance by Dec. 31, 2018, and would extend the deadline even longer if the county decided to fund a new jail.

With the required renovations pending, county officials have discussed either closing the downtown jail and replacing it with a new facility next to the satellite jail or renovating the downtown jail to make it more suitable for housing inmates, said Chief Deputy Allen Jones.

Standing in the way: funding issues and the efforts of local activist groups who oppose any new facility.

Board Member Pattsi Petrie had a couple comments as well, that pointed out the Mental Health Board (MHB) doesn't seem to get enough attention for many of these program issues as the full County Board meetings do:

If the downtown jail is closed for whatever reason and the satelitte jail does not have additional provisions constructed there, then the projected cost to out source is 1M/annually. And the sheriff inquired whether nearby counties have space and willingness to house the out sourced inmates. The responses across the board is negative. The next step will be to out source at jails many hundreds of miles away fro C-U, making family visitations very difficult, let alone the cost of deputy time to transport to and fro along with gas costs. Approximately there are 40 inmates plus or minus at the downtown jail. Just do the math.

CB member appreciate once again pointing out that there has never been a plan to build a new jail, not even back to the first consultant report. That is a narrative conjured by the Build Programs, Not Jails folks.

Indeed, the county does have a hard time educating the public about all of the issues that the county has before it to solve. CCNH has been sucking the ether out of the air for years along with money. There is a bit of a domino effect in play--solve the nursing home one way or the other, move to relocating the sheriff's office, this opens up what to do with the downtown jail. If the decision is to close that facility, then the county can repurpose the building and land, which might mean selling both. The resulting funds can be turned toward county building maintenance. The more that the decision on the jail and building maintenance is kicked down the road, the over all costs continue to increase. Just think had the sales tax passed--the county would already have done phase one of the ten-years plan on maintenance, used tax dollars in the most efficient possible way, and stayed ahead of the CPI.

And she continued in a second comment:

One more clarification--the CCNH is an Enterprize Fund. By definition this type of fund is constructed such that the entity being funded is resonsible to pay for any and all expenses associated with the entity. The nursing home is not part of the county general fund. So, yes, the CCNH is responsible for all expenses and debt. You are correct in that the county owns this home so the buck stops with the county, including all associated debt. This is one of many reasons that you do not hear a discussion about closing the home because doing so would, in essence, bankrupt the couny  This stated if there is not the launch of the RFP so the CB can find out if there is a buyer(s), then the next step will need to be putting in place a contingency plan to close the home. Because the county is ultimately responsible for staff IMRF and FICA along with regularly making payroll, the county has loaned the home a lot of money, in addition to having forgiven a large amount of loan monies.

For whatever reason, citizens have a hard time understanding these financial facts.

The facility sales tax, as I have written all too often, would have paid as we go for county building maintenance. On one hand people comment that the county can not even maintain the buildings and the downtown jail is in terrible condition Then on the other hand, the same citizens argue for social programs, many of which could be funded and supported by the 4.5 M/annually received by the MHB. Why is it that these concerns are not regularly presented to that board and the CUPHD board or the two municipalities and hospitals, etc.?

Right now the county is moving toward a historic repeat that resulted in the DOJ telling the county we will build a new jail if you do not. The result was the downtown jail. This jail is about to cost the county millions of dollars, per the information in the above article.

All of the county budget/finances are on the county web site.

CU-CitizenAccess appears to have a lot of helpful information about local politics and issues. I'll try to get more information about it and pass it along. In the mean time here are links to their on-line material:

CU-CitizenAccess main website is available here: http://cu-citizenaccess.org/
And also on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cucitizenaccess/